Various role-playing RPG game stuff not deserving its own thread

[Manny V]

Nah that's weak. You receive that "DLC is activated" message way earlier in the game, among many others which most people would just click past because all it's saying is your several different DLCs are enabled.

Several hours later you're supposed to remember what that little symbol means? **** that. It barely looks different than any other symbol that is shown next to a special quest. And unlike most of those, once you start this one, you're stuck.

You'll see my complaint is a common criticism in many online discussions about A Woman's Lot DLC. Don't be an apologist for bad design.


Good design would have been a pop-up WHEN THE CHOICE COMES UP that warns the player what they are getting into. Not some vague dialogue "Oh its a long story"... If you don't know what that stupid symbol means then it's not even clear it's a DLC that is starting.

not to defend dumb foid dlc or anything, but i feel like the unique dlc icon in dialogue makes it seem kinda obvious, people are just too zoombrained to notice

[Bertram_Tung]

Nah that's weak. You receive that "DLC is activated" message way earlier in the game, among many others which most people would just click past because all it's saying is your several different DLCs are enabled.

Several hours later you're supposed to remember what that little symbol means? **** that. It barely looks different than any other symbol that is shown next to a special quest. And unlike most of those, once you start this one, you're stuck.

You'll see my complaint is a common criticism in many online discussions about A Woman's Lot DLC. Don't be an apologist for bad design.


Good design would have been a pop-up WHEN THE CHOICE COMES UP that warns the player what they are getting into. Not some vague dialogue "Oh its a long story"... If you don't know what that stupid symbol means then it's not even clear it's a DLC that is starting.

not to defend dumb foid dlc or anything, but i feel like the unique dlc icon in dialogue makes it seem kinda obvious, people are just too zoombrained to notice

Maybe it seems obvious out of proper context.

But in reality the DLC symbol is shown once very early on in the game in a pop-up (when all the other DLC activates), buried among other messages. Most players won't see that quest until perhaps IRL days or weeks later depending on how much they are exploring, and by then the symbol blends in with the rest of the UI. It doesn't stand out much and looks similar to other many various different colored quest markers.

Additionally, other DLCs don't force you into an unskippable six-hour side story where you are taken away from your character. "It's a long story" isn't a warning, it sounds like normal quest dialogue, maybe leading to a big exposition dump or something. Expecting players to remember a vague icon from hours of gameplay earlier is not good design. The game fails to communicate clearly when it matters. To make it worse, the save system is limited, so you might not even have a recent save to fall back on once you realize what you've triggered. A simple confirmation prompt would fix it, but instead it relies on players catching a small detail long after it was introduced.

[Bertram_Tung]

The limited save system honestly makes it a much bigger problem than it has to be. Because you may accidentally trigger it and then realize what you've done, and now you have to make the choice "Do I lose the last 2 hours of progress from the last time I saved before triggering this DLC" or "Do I power on and try to get through it" and you may not realize how ******* LONG it is. It makes it such an unenjoyable experience if you get caught in this situation and it's definitely worth warning new players about.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

I cannot recall being able to make any mechanically irreversible decisions in KCD. I remember getting caught raiding the smithy in the Western town, trying to escape and mounting a horse and then discovering I was invincible and could one shot everyone by thrusting my spiked hammer while galloping, embarked on a mass murder spree and killed 40+ guards and villagers in town, then when to the monastery and wiped out dozens more in the courtyard before dismounting to go inside and then finally going down... only to get a two week jail sentence, released and seeing the town repopulated, and then I resumed the story where Henry's adoptive dad pats me on the back like I am still an upstanding citizen. The game can mislead you into having sex outside of marriage (early on at the first castle you visit when you are just nice to the lady, agreeing to have a drink with the priest at the pup which leads to an orgy, taking a walk with Theresa which suddenly ends with casual sex in the barn) with no warning in the dialogue options, but that doesn't lead to any mechanical consequences IIRC like locking you out of questlines or permanently depopulating the land or anything. You can also eventually max out all of the skills so it's not like you can brick your playstyle/build either.

[Tadeusz]

i read somewhere that the 'a woman's lot' dlc is somewhat woke and i should avoid it, how true is that?

Theresa's story has some mild feministic messaging and is not very engaging to be honest. Johanka's story is great though and focuses on faith mostly. You may completely skip Theresa's arc without losing much.

[nullSector]

i read somewhere that the 'a woman's lot' dlc is somewhat woke and i should avoid it, how true is that?

Theresa's story has some mild feministic messaging and is not very engaging to be honest. Johanka's story is great though and focuses on faith mostly. You may completely skip Theresa's arc without losing much.

Well i particularly dislike it when i am forced to change the character I am playing as (see: witcher 3 ciri), and I despise playing as a female character even more.

Johanka's story sounds great, I will be looking forward to it.

[Bertram_Tung]

nullSector is the best new poster, pls join HQChat

[rusty_shackleford]

Iirc the dlc has breaks, doesn't it? It also unlocks the dog companion. Perhaps a bit worthless in combat it is nevertheless nice to have a companion travel with you.

[Tadeusz]

Iirc the dlc has breaks, doesn't it?

Yes, Theresa's story is available in the beginning, Johanka's story is around mid-game.

It also unlocks the dog companion. Perhaps a bit worthless in combat it is nevertheless nice to have a companion travel with you.

Dog is great for distracting enemies if a certain skill is taken.

[Bertram_Tung]

Iirc the dlc has breaks, doesn't it?

Yes, Theresa's story is available in the beginning, Johanka's story is around mid-game.

It also unlocks the dog companion. Perhaps a bit worthless in combat it is nevertheless nice to have a companion travel with you.

Dog is great for distracting enemies if a certain skill is taken.

You are locked into Theresa's story until you finish it, which the part that attracts the bulk of the complaints.

Johanka's questline is separate, but it's handled more like a regular side quest where you play as Henry and you can come and go as you please. You aren't locked into that portion.

[Manny V]

I cannot recall being able to make any mechanically irreversible decisions in KCD. I remember getting caught raiding the smithy in the Western town, trying to escape and mounting a horse and then discovering I was invincible and could one shot everyone by thrusting my spiked hammer while galloping, embarked on a mass murder spree and killed 40+ guards and villagers in town, then when to the monastery and wiped out dozens more in the courtyard before dismounting to go inside and then finally going down... only to get a two week jail sentence, released and seeing the town repopulated, and then I resumed the story where Henry's adoptive dad pats me on the back like I am still an upstanding citizen. The game can mislead you into having sex outside of marriage (early on at the first castle you visit when you are just nice to the lady, agreeing to have a drink with the priest at the pup which leads to an orgy, taking a walk with Theresa which suddenly ends with casual sex in the barn) with no warning in the dialogue options, but that doesn't lead to any mechanical consequences IIRC like locking you out of questlines or permanently depopulating the land or anything. You can also eventually max out all of the skills so it's not like you can brick your playstyle/build either.

why were you being a murderhobo, that's not very on brand for you

[Val the Moofia Boss]

I cannot recall being able to make any mechanically irreversible decisions in KCD. I remember getting caught raiding the smithy in the Western town, trying to escape and mounting a horse and then discovering I was invincible and could one shot everyone by thrusting my spiked hammer while galloping, embarked on a mass murder spree and killed 40+ guards and villagers in town, then when to the monastery and wiped out dozens more in the courtyard before dismounting to go inside and then finally going down... only to get a two week jail sentence, released and seeing the town repopulated, and then I resumed the story where Henry's adoptive dad pats me on the back like I am still an upstanding citizen. The game can mislead you into having sex outside of marriage (early on at the first castle you visit when you are just nice to the lady, agreeing to have a drink with the priest at the pup which leads to an orgy, taking a walk with Theresa which suddenly ends with casual sex in the barn) with no warning in the dialogue options, but that doesn't lead to any mechanical consequences IIRC like locking you out of questlines or permanently depopulating the land or anything. You can also eventually max out all of the skills so it's not like you can brick your playstyle/build either.

why were you being a murderhobo, that's not very on brand for you

It was not my intent to be one initially. The first few hours of KCD of running around the first village, then fleeing to the castle, and then fleeing to the eastern town was very boring and I was rapidly losing interest in the game. Once I got let loose at the eastern town, I just wanted to have fun immediately, but my character had no sword skill and no equipment. But I talked to a miller and I think I got lockpicks somehow. I had fun playing the 1998 Thief game so I was curious if I could have fun like that here. So I decided to try to start thieving, fast forwarding to night time and then looking each way on the street and creeping up to people's houses and picking the lock and then tipetoing to their chests, becoming encumbered and then slowly trying to walk away while loaded down and hoping I wouldn't be caught. That was engaging enough. Sadly there was no sound propagation though as I was opening very loud doors, chests closed with a loud thump, bumping into objects, etc. Then I discovered that what you really want to do is to just alternate between cleaning out the smithy and the tailor in the two towns over and over again and become fabulously rich, could afford the best equipment, and then got on with slogging through the boring main story.

[Manny V]

being a good, honourable Christian in service to his liege lord - Boring

oooo funnee stealing, mmmmm material gain!!!! - Fun

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Feels odd that there haven't been any big Age of Sigmar videogames a decade after the franchise launched

[UltraFan123]

Feels odd that there haven't been any big Age of Sigmar videogames a decade after the franchise launched

I think that's because pretty much everyone agrees that Age of Sigmar so far is still a "meh" setting.

Like it had good potential, but Games Workshop - being Games Workshop - didn't put in the effort to actually polish the setting as it should had been.

[rusty_shackleford]

The reason there is no "skyrim killer" is because skyrim is an objectively bad game that got into the normiezone due to forced unfunny reddit memes. You can't kill skyrim by making a better game because its popularity has nothing to do with its gameplay.

[gerey]

The reason there is no "skyrim killer" is because skyrim is an objectively bad game that got into the normiezone due to forced unfunny reddit memes. You can't kill skyrim by making a better game because its popularity has nothing to do with its gameplay.

Maybe, but Skyrim came out almost 15 years ago, and it's wild to me that nobody has attempted to capitalize on its popularity by deliberately marketing their game as a Skyrim-like in all this time, especially because of the vacuum Bethesda's glacial development pace has left in its wake.

The problem is that to make a TES clone requires more manpower and funding than the vast majority of indie devs can muster, while bigger companies don't view the niche Skyrim fills to be profitable enough to justify the costs that they would incur if they were to retool their studios to make such a game.

[rusty_shackleford]

The reason there is no "skyrim killer" is because skyrim is an objectively bad game that got into the normiezone due to forced unfunny reddit memes. You can't kill skyrim by making a better game because its popularity has nothing to do with its gameplay.

Maybe, but Skyrim came out almost 15 years ago, and it's wild to me that nobody has attempted to capitalize on its popularity by deliberately marketing their game as a Skyrim-like in all this time, especially because of the vacuum Bethesda's glacial development pace has left in its wake.

The problem is that to make a TES clone requires more manpower and funding than the vast majority of indie devs can muster, while bigger companies don't view the niche Skyrim fills to be profitable enough to justify the costs that they would incur if they were to retool their studios to make such a game.

What even is a "skyrim-like"?
The game has no identity beyond being a hiking simulator with poor combat.
"muh mods"? — the vast majority of people never played the game with mods.

[gerey]

What even is a "skyrim-like"?

Maybe it's better to call it TES-like? I wouldn't say the popularity of their games is a fluke considering Morrowind, Oblivion, Fallout 3 and 4.

Though, now that I think about it, there's plenty of other highly popular IPs that basically exist as a monopoly in their niche of choice.

Why hasn't anyone attempted to make a Total War killer? Surely the huge success of the Three Kingdoms one would have warranted the effort?

Why isn't anyone challenging Paradox on their home turf?

Bethesda, CA and Paradox have consistently dropped the ball and antagonized their costumer bases, so it should be relatively easy for a competent company with an on-par product to be able to muscle in and make a profit, so why aren't they?

[Val the Moofia Boss]

The biggest Western AAA studios stick to reusing their same engine and scripts. Ubisoft just takes last year's Assassin's Creed, swaps out the models, writes code for a few new mechanics, and then releases that as a new game. Same with Activision and Call of Duty, or EA and sports games. They don't build huge new games from scratch. None of them already have an established team and codebase working on the same RTS game engine year after year, and starting on that from scratch would be a big time investment and take years to build up enough customer goodwill/reputation for the sales to begin piling up. But American courts have ruled that the board of directors MUST make the most amount of money possible for their shareholders or they can be sued. So the nature of corporations is that they are focused on the quarterly reports in the short term as there is a revolving door of execs. Nintendo is the rare games company that plans for the really, really long term and sticks with their plan in how they never made their games go on sale, to the point that a decade later people are now buying Switch 2 games at full price knowing that they will never go on sale. I am hard pressed to think of any other Western games company that can stick with a plan for that long.

[Roguey]

The reason there is no "skyrim killer" is because skyrim is an objectively bad game that got into the normiezone due to forced unfunny reddit memes. You can't kill skyrim by making a better game because its popularity has nothing to do with its gameplay.

So is Oblivion and it got a bunch of day one buyers with a shadowdrop despite being a worse game than the original. The masses love these casual open world RPGs where you run around in a fantasy world. Tainted Grail got slightly more buyers than Avowed, so the floor on these kinds of games is something along the lines of 200,000 if you even show up. They could deliver a lot more if they truly did offer the Bethesda experience (easy to pick up and play, big world with a lot of content).

[rusty_shackleford]

The reason there is no "skyrim killer" is because skyrim is an objectively bad game that got into the normiezone due to forced unfunny reddit memes. You can't kill skyrim by making a better game because its popularity has nothing to do with its gameplay.

So is Oblivion and it got a bunch of day one buyers with a shadowdrop despite being a worse game than the original. The masses love these casual open world RPGs where you run around in a fantasy world. Tainted Grail got slightly more buyers than Avowed, so the floor on these kinds of games is something along the lines of 200,000 if you even show up. They could deliver a lot more if they truly did offer the Bethesda experience (easy to pick up and play, big world with a lot of content).

oblivion sold on being oblivion by bethesda, nothing more nothing less

It's exactly what I stated already: There is nothing to kill because you cannot compete with these games on gameplay, they aren't actually good games to begin with.

[Tweed]

Normies love running around slack-jawed in bad theme parks.

[nullSector]

KCD is now one of my favorite games and easily lived up to my expectations. It had almost no wokeness except the faggotry between two guys (Erik and Istvan Toth). It was mostly implied, though, and thankfully wasn't given any real focus.

Iirc the dlc has breaks, doesn't it? It also unlocks the dog companion

The DLC is basically one flashback, a quest line, and a dog companion, all independent of each other. The dog can be obtained without needing to do Theresa's flashback, and Johanka's quest is further along in the game and is like any other DLC quest. Johanka's quest was pretty interesting, though Johanka herself is a bit hypocritical and annoying, sometimes making me want to mace her head in.

The ending felt a bit... incomplete. You don't particularly achieve much and the epilogue is basically just a set up for the next game. Feels kind of rushed near the ending of the game, It also feels rushed near the end, as if the devs were trying to wrap things up to meet a deadline. The exposition dump where they all the lords discussed politics with Jobst at the ending was really fun, though.

Wished there were more games like KCD, being a bit of a historyfag myself. Shame that warhorse got pozzed, so we only got one Historical™ RPG.
Considering the wokeness of the sequel, I have zero desire to touch that game, and therefore I will be wrapping up my Kingdom Come: Deliverance adventures with this one.

[I Kill Homos]

ATOM was good, its the first game LGBHQ have recommended that ACTUALLY was good. Thank you for recommending it, rusty. I rolled a lone wolf kungu man, but I stopped short of Death Tunnel, after recruiting Hex, and I won't be continuing for awhile. Really fun ~50 hrs though, hadn't had fun like it in a long time.

However, I was also replaying IWD on my steam deck, and I think this is the first I didn't quit after the crypt just to play a different game, *after dumping hours in character generation. I can say, IWD is an absolute dogshit hallway shooter, and whoever likes it more than ToEE or Baldur's Gate is a fatty. With its Interplay/millennial writing, monotonous hordes of trash, magic ghost girls, and I absolutely hate a GM who teaches you to play a certain way the entire game, except one boss, and scripts doors shut with no precident. "NOOOOO YOU CAN'T CHEESE THE BOSS YOUR WAY! YOU NEED TO CHEESE THE BOSS MY WAY!" Get ******.

*poorly worded, but what I mean is I typically pregen characters for hours, then play until I get bored. Maybe it was pure hatred, or the likeness of Dragon's Eye to RPGHQ, but I just had to keep going. I had to go beyond hate, into something else.

[Rand]

...it should be relatively easy for a competent company with an on-par product to be able to muscle in and make a profit, so why aren't they?

They don't hire competent people and let them make games competently.
They're corporations. Run by MBA ******* and people like Kotick. They wouldn't even be able to name all the games the company made. they play ******* golf IRL, ffs.
If they do get someone competent, they don't give them any power and authority and they work hem like **** for zero reconition.

Who made Morrowind. I know. They talked about the game they made.
Who made Daggerfall? I know. They talked about the game they made.
Who made the real Fallouts (1, 2, New Vegas)? I know. They talked about the game they made.
Who made Skyrim? Aside from the one writer hack Emil, I have no idea.
Who made Fallout 3? Fallout 4? Not a ******* clue.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Also, everyone from FFX-2.

Wait is that the all girl one? I think I played that at the university. That was beyond cringe.

FF10-2 is underrated (not the same as saying it is great). It is the only mainline 3D FF game outside of the two MMOs with a job system where the characters visibly change (not just their models, but also their animations). It's not like the job boards in the FF12 rerelease or Paradigm shifting in FF13 where you switch classes but your character looks the exact same as they did before, so the class changing feels like it is in name only and you have to squint real hard at the mechanics to find differentiation. And the outfits and animations aren't copypasted across the characters; they each have unique poses and outfits for the same class.










The main problem though is that FF10 is a finished story and there isn't much room to maneuver in Spira for more content, and the horrendous opening FMV that alienates a lot of people as soon as they boot up the game.

[rusty_shackleford]

main problem with ffx-2 is you have to play as a woman

[Tangerine]

Also, everyone from FFX-2.

Wait is that the all girl one? I think I played that at the university. That was beyond cringe.

FF10-2 is underrated (not the same as saying it is great). It is the only mainline 3D FF game outside of the two MMOs with a job system where the characters visibly change (not just their models, but also their animations). It's not like the job boards in the FF12 rerelease or Paradigm shifting in FF13 where you switch classes but your character looks the exact same as they did before, so the class changing feels like it is in name only and you have to squint real hard at the mechanics to find differentiation. And the outfits and animations aren't copypasted across the characters; they each have unique poses and outfits for the same class.










The main problem though is that FF10 is a finished story and there isn't much room to maneuver in Spira for more content, and the horrendous opening FMV that alienates a lot of people as soon as they boot up the game.

It's not particularly challenging, the story sucks, the characters are annoying almost across the board, the music is immemorable, and it doesn't get credit for recycling FFX's aesthetic/world. Saying it's underrated is being generous; it's a bad game and the job and battle systems are the only things worth a ****.

Edit: Also, no dragoons in an FF game with class changing is a crime.

[KOS-MOS]

Wait is that the all girl one? I think I played that at the university. That was beyond cringe.

FF10-2 is underrated (not the same as saying it is great). It is the only mainline 3D FF game outside of the two MMOs with a job system where the characters visibly change (not just their models, but also their animations). It's not like the job boards in the FF12 rerelease or Paradigm shifting in FF13 where you switch classes but your character looks the exact same as they did before, so the class changing feels like it is in name only and you have to squint real hard at the mechanics to find differentiation. And the outfits and animations aren't copypasted across the characters; they each have unique poses and outfits for the same class.










The main problem though is that FF10 is a finished story and there isn't much room to maneuver in Spira for more content, and the horrendous opening FMV that alienates a lot of people as soon as they boot up the game.

It's not particularly challenging, the story sucks, the characters are annoying almost across the board, the music is immemorable, and it doesn't get credit for recycling FFX's aesthetic/world. Saying it's underrated is being generous; it's a bad game and the job and battle systems are the only things worth a ****.

Edit: Also, no dragoons in an FF game with class changing is a crime.

Wait, I agree with Tangerine’s take on a JRPG... What’s going on here?